Women's Murder Club [08] The 8th Confession

by James Patterson

  For so long, she thought that she was handling it.

  But if she’d learned anything from McKenzie Oliver, it was that “handling it” was overrated.

  Pet Girl stared around the room, filled now with racks of outrageous, never-worn clothes and mountains of unopened boxes of pricey purchases bought on a whim.

  It was sickening. The decadence of the very rich. The twenty-four-karat-gold crap.

  Inside the bedroom, the shouting stopped. Pet Girl pressed her ear to the wall, listened to the Baileys grunt and groan, Isa calling out, “Oh yes, that’s good, oh!” the two of them making what they called love, Isa’s voice giving Pet Girl even more reason to bring her down.

  And then there was silence.

  Pet Girl gripped the handle of her canvas bag.

  It was time.

  Chapter 25

  PET GIRL OPENED the door to the Baileys’ bedroom, dropped to a crouch as the pugs, Wako and Waldo, ran over to her, all snuffling and wriggling. She shushed and rubbed them, watched them trot back to their baskets under the window, circle, and lie down again.

  Pet Girl stood rock still, listening to the Baileys’ rhythmic breathing coming from their vast moonlit bed. At the windows, silk taffeta curtains billowed, the rustling covering her own excited breathing and the whooshing of traffic on the street below.

  She could see that Isa was nude, lying on her stomach under the thousand-thread-count sheets and 100-percent goose down comforter, her long, dark hair fanned out over her shoulders. On her left, Ethan lay on his back, his snores scenting the air with alcohol.

  Pet Girl walked to Isa’s side, homed in on her exposed shoulder. Her heart was thudding. She felt as high as if she’d jumped from a plane and was waiting to pull the rip cord.

  She put down her canvas bag, opened it, and reached inside with her gloved hand. Just then, Isa stirred, half rose up in her bed, and, seeing Pet Girl’s stooped silhouette, called out, “Who’s there?” her voice slurry with drink and sleep.

  Pet Girl croaked, “Isa, it’s just me.”

  “What are you… doing here?”

  Pet Girl’s feet had frozen to the floor. Had she been crazy? What if Isa turned on the lights? What if the dogs went nuts? What if Ethan woke up?

  Plan B was satisfactory, but it was far from ideal.

  “I picked up your prescription. I made a special trip,” Pet Girl whispered, vamping madly. Ethan stirred, rolled onto his side facing away from her. He pulled the comforter up under his arm. He was out.

  “Put it on my nightstand and get the hell out, okay?”

  “That’s what I’m doing,” Pet Girl said, sounding pissed off now, believably so. “Did you hear me? I made a special trip. And you’re welcome.”

  Isa’s shoulder was only inches from Pet Girl’s hand. She struck softly, precisely.

  “What was that?” Isa asked. “Did you pinch me?”

  “Yeah, bitch. Because I hate you. I wish you’d die.”

  Isa laughed. “Don’t hold back, darling.”

  “No,” said Pet Girl, “not me.”

  But a new idea was forming. Call it Plan C.

  Willing her pulse to slow, Pet Girl walked to Ethan’s side of the bed, picked up a paperback off the floor, returned it to the night table, eyed his hairy arm lying across the top of the comforter.

  “What are you doing now?” Isa asked.

  “Tidying up,” Pet Girl said.

  And she struck again.

  Oh yes, it’s so good. Oh.

  “Go to sleep,” Pet Girl said, snapping her bag closed. “I’ll be back in the morning for the dogs.”

  “Don’t wake us up, chickadee.”

  “Don’t worry. Sweet dreams,” she said, her voice rising giddily. With the handles of her canvas bag slung over her shoulder, Pet Girl ran quickly down two flights of stairs in the dark and punched Isa’s code into the keypad at the front door, disarming and then arming the alarm again.

  Then she stepped outside as free as a chickadee. “Sweet dreams, darlings,” sang the voice in her head. “Sweet dreams.”

  Chapter 26

  IT WAS AROUND LUNCHTIME on Monday when Jacobi loomed over our desks, said to me and Conklin, “I need you both to get over to Broadway and Pierce before the bodies are moved. Boxer, relieve the swing shift and take over the case.”

  “Take over the case?” I said dumbly.

  I shot a look at Conklin. We’d just been talking about the Baileys, who’d been found dead a few hours ago in their bed. We’d been glad we hadn’t caught a case that was guaranteed to be surrounded by media high jinks all the time, live updates on the hour.

  “The mayor is Ethan Bailey’s cousin,” said Jacobi.

  “I know that.”

  “He and the chief want you on this, Boxer. Asked for you by name.”

  As flattering as that was meant to be, I nearly gagged. Rich and I were drowning in unsolved cases, and not only would a high-profile crime be micromanaged by the brass but our other twelve cases would not go away. They’d just get cold.

  “No bitching,” Jacobi said to me. “Yours is to protect and serve.”

  I stared at him, mouth closed so I wouldn’t say bad things.

  But I saw that Conklin was having a whole different reaction. He cleared off a space on his desk, and Jacobi put his butt down, still talking.

  “There’s a live-in housekeeping staff at the Bailey house, and they have their own wing. The head of housekeeping, Iraida Hernandez, found the bodies,” Jacobi said. “You’ll want to talk to her first.”

  I had my notebook out. “What else?” I was in the frying pan, felt the flames lapping at the edges.

  “The Baileys had dinner with a friend last night. Interior designer, name of Noble Blue, might be the last person to see them alive. After Hernandez called nine one one, she called Blue, and Blue phoned the mayor. That’s all we’ve got.”

  Well, there would be more. Lots more.

  The Bailey family history was common knowledge.

  Isa Booth Bailey was a fourth-generation San Franciscan, descended from one of the railroad magnates who’d forged train lines over the prairies in the mid-1800s. Her family was in the billionaire league.

  Ethan Bailey’s line also went back to 1800s San Francisco, but his family had been working-class. His great-grandfather was a miner, and from there his family worked their way up, notch by notch, through everyday commerce. Before Ethan Bailey died sometime in the dark hours, he’d owned “Bailey’s,” a chain of restaurants featuring all-you-can-eat buffets for $9.99.

  Together and separately, they’d been the focus of San Francisco socialites and wannabes. There were rumors of Hollywood lovers, kinky combinations, and all the parties money could buy: red party, blue party, and party hearty.

  I tuned back in to what Jacobi was saying. “This Noble Blue is some kind of fancy fruit. Said he can fill you in on the Baileys’ crowd from soup to nuts. And he’s not kidding about the nuts. Boxer, take anyone you need to work the case — Lemke, Samuels, McNeil. I want updates and I’ll be sticking my nose in.”

  I gave him the evil eye but said, “Fine. You know what I’m praying for?” I took the file out of Jacobi’s hand, stood to put on my jacket.

  Jacobi’s face flattened. “What’s that, Boxer?”

  “That the Baileys left suicide notes.”

  Chapter 27

  CONKLIN TOOK THE WHEEL of our unmarked Chevy, and we pulled out heading north on Bryant. We bucked through stop-and-go traffic until I said, “This is nuts,” and flipped on the siren. Fifteen minutes later, we were parked across from the Baileys’ home.

  The fire department was there, as well as an assortment of marked and unmarked police cars and the CSI mobile that was blocking the front walk.

  There aren’t many Hollywood types in San Francisco, but if we had a star map, the Baileys’ house would be on it. A three-story buff stucco giant with white crossbeams and trim, it was planted on the corner of Broadway and Pierce, running a ha
lf block to both the south and the east.

  It looked more like a museum than a house to me, but it had a glamorous history going back to Prohibition, and it was the best that fifteen million bucks could buy: thirty thousand square feet of the city’s most prime real estate.

  I greeted the first officer at the door, Pat Noonan, a kid with stuck-out red ears and a growing reputation for immaculate police work. Samuels and Lemke came up the path, and I put them back on the street to canvass the neighborhood.

  “Forced entry?” I asked Noonan.

  “No, ma’am. Anyone entering the house had to have an alarm code and a key. Those five people over there? That’s the live-in staff. They were all here last night, didn’t hear or see anything.”

  I muttered, “Now there’s a shock.” Then Noonan introduced us to the head housekeeper, Iraida Hernandez.

  Hernandez was a wiry woman, immaculately dressed, late fifties. Her eyes were red from weeping, and her English was better than mine. I took her aside so we could speak privately.

  “This was no suicide,” Hernandez announced defiantly. “I was Isa’s nursemaid. I’m raising her kids. I know this whole family from conception on, and I tell you that Isa and Ethan were happy.”

  “Where are their children now?”

  “Thank God, they spent the night with their grandparents. I want to be sick. What if they had found their parents instead of me? Or what if they’d been home — no, no. I can’t even think.”

  I asked Hernandez where she’d been all night (“In bed, watching a Plastic Surgery: Before and After marathon”), what she saw when she opened the Baileys’ door (“They were dead. Still warm!”), and if she knew anyone who might have wanted to hurt the Baileys (“Lots of people were jealous of them, but to kill them? I think there’s been some kind of horrible accident”).

  Hernandez looked up at me as if she were hoping I could make the bad dream go away, but I was already thinking over the puzzle, wondering if I’d actually taken on some kind of English-style drawing-room whodunit.

  I told Hernandez that she and the staff would be getting rides to the station so that we could take exclusionary prints and DNA. And then I called Jacobi.

  “This wasn’t a break-in,” I told him. “Whatever was going on in this house, the staff probably know about it. All five had unrestricted access, so —”

  “So chances are good that if the Baileys were murdered, one of them did it.”

  “There you go. Reading my mind.”

  I told Jacobi that I thought he and Chi should do the interviews themselves, and Jacobi agreed. Then Conklin and I ducked under the barrier tape and logged in with a rookie in the foyer who directed us to the Baileys’ bedroom.

  The interior of the house was a wonderland of tinted plaster walls, elaborate moldings and copings, fine old European paintings and antiques in every room, each chamber opening into an even grander one, a breathtaking series of surprises.

  When we got to the third floor, I heard voices and the static of radios coming from halfway down the carpeted hallway.

  A buff young cop from the night tour, Sergeant Bob Nardone, walked into the hall, called out to me as we came toward him.

  I said, “Sorry about having to take over, Bob. I have orders.”

  For some reason, I expected a fight.

  “You’re joking, right, Boxer? Take my case, please!”

  Chapter 28

  CHARLIE CLAPPER, head of our crime lab, was standing beside the Baileys’ bed. Clapper is in his midfifties, and having spent half his life in law enforcement, he’s as good as they come. Maybe better. Charlie is no showboater. He’s nitpickingly thorough. Then he says his piece and gets out of the way.

  Clapper had been at the scene for about two hours, and there were no markers or flags on the carpet, meaning no blood, no trace. As techs dusted the furniture for prints, I took in the astonishing tableau in front of me.

  The Baileys lay in their bed, as still and as unblemished as if they were made of wax.

  Both bodies were nude, sheets and a comforter were draped over their lower trunks. A black lace demibra hung over the massive carved-mahogany headboard. Other clothing, both outer- and underwear, was scattered around the floor as though it had been tossed there in haste.

  “Everything is as we found it except for an opened bottle of Moët and two champagne flutes, which are headed back to the lab,” Clapper told Conklin and me. “Mr. Bailey took Cafergot for migraines, Prevacid for acid reflux. His wife took clonazepam. That’s for anxiety.”

  “That’s some kind of Valium, right?” Conklin asked.

  “Similar. The directions on the bottle were for one tablet to be used for sleep at bedtime. That’s minimal.”

  “How much was in the medicine bottle?” Conklin asked.

  “It was nearly full.”

  “Could clonazepam have a lethal interaction with champagne?”

  “Put her to sleep is all.”

  “So what are you thinking?” I asked Clapper.

  “Well, I look at the positions of the bodies and hope that’ll tell me something. If they were holding hands, I’d be thinking suicide pact. Or maybe something a little more sinister.”

  “Like the killer staged the scene after the victims were dead?”

  Clapper nodded, said, “Exactly. Some kind of forethought or afterthought. But here are two apparently healthy people in their thirties lying in natural sleeping positions. There’s semen on the sheets but no blood, no other substances. And I don’t see any signs of struggle, no marks or wounds.”

  “Please, Charlie, give us something,” I said.

  “Well, here’s what it’s not: carbon monoxide. The fire department did a thorough sweep, and it was negative. Also, the Baileys’ dogs slept here,” Clapper said, pointing to the dog beds near the window, “and both are alive. According to the housekeeper, the dog walker came for them at eight, and when she brought them back, she told Hernandez that the dogs were fine.”

  “Lovely,” I said. “Perfect, really.”

  “I’ll get back to you on the prints and leave the rest to the ME when she gets here. But you’re right, Lindsay. This crime scene is too clean. If it is a crime scene.”

  “And that’s all?”

  Charlie winked. “That’s all. Clapper has spoken.”

  Chapter 29

  THE BAILEYS GOT the best of everything, even in death. We got search warrants without a grilling. First time ever. Then Deputy DA Leonard Parisi came by and asked for a tour of the so-called crime scene.

  His presence told me that if this was homicide and there was a prosecutable suspect, Red Dog was going to try the case himself. I showed him the victims, and he stood silently, respectfully.

  Then he said, “This is ugly. No matter what happened here, it’s grotesque.”

  No sooner had Parisi left when Claire walked in with two assistants. I briefed her as she took photos of the Baileys: two shots from each angle before she touched the bodies.

  “Any thoughts you can share?” I asked as she pulled down the bedsheets, took more pictures.

  “Hang on, baby girl. I don’t know what the hell I’m thinking yet.”

  She harrumphed a few times, asked for help in turning the bodies, said, “There’s no rigor. Lividity is blanching. They’re still warm to the touch. So I would certainly put time of death at twelve hours or under.”

  “Could it be six?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah. They’re rich, thin, beautiful, and dead.”

  Claire then gave me the usual disclaimer: she wouldn’t say anything official until she’d done the posts.

  “But here’s what’s unusual,” Claire told my partner and me. “Two dead folks, the rigor is pretty much the same, the lividity is pretty much the same. Something got these people at the same time, Lindsay.

  “Look at them. No visible trauma, no bullet wounds, no bruising, no defensive wounds. I’m starting to think of poisoning, you
know?”

  “Poisoning, huh? Like maybe two homicides? Or a homicide-suicide? I’m just thinking out loud.”

  Claire shot me a grin. “I’ll do the autopsies today. I’ll send out the blood. I’ll let you know what the labs come back with. I’ll tell you what I know as soon as I know it.”

  Conklin and I worked the top floor of the Baileys’ museum of a house while Clapper’s team did the kitchen and baths. We looked for signs of disturbance and we looked for notes and journals, found none. We confiscated three laptops: Isa’s, Ethan’s, and the one belonging to Christopher Bailey, age nine, for good measure.

  We methodically tossed the closets and looked under the beds, then searched the servants’ quarters so the staff could return to their rooms when they got back from the Hall.

  I checked in with Claire as the deceased were being zipped into body bags, and she looked at my frown, said, “I’m not worried, Linds, so relax yourself. The tox screens will give us a clue.”

  Chapter 30

  “HERE WE GO,” said Conklin, nodding in the direction of the fortyish, sandy-haired man in shorts and a hot-pink T-shirt waving to us from a tiki hut, one of several similar cabanas grouped around an oval-shaped pool.

  If there was ever a place where Conklin and I stood out as cops, this was it. The Bambuddha Lounge had been the epicenter for hipster-richies since Sean Penn had held a party here after wrapping his Nixon film. As we crossed the patio, eyes shifted away, joints were snuffed out. I half expected someone to shout, “Cheese it, the fuzz.”

  “I’m Noble Blue,” said the man in pink.

  We introduced ourselves. I ordered mineral water to Noble Blue’s mai tai, and when we were all comfortable, I said, “I understand you had dinner with the Baileys last night.”

  “Can you imagine?” Blue said. “They were having their last meal. In a million years, I would never have guessed. We were at the opera before dinner. Don Giovanni,” he told us. “It was terrific.”